Technical Abstract:
Water deficit stress is one of the most challenging agricultural issues limiting sustainable cotton production. Many efforts have been incorporated using genetic and genomic approaches to identify valuable molecular resources. In this study, we aimed to identify a global set of transcript fragments that are differentially expressed in response to sub-optimal soil water supply during the flowering period of field-grown cotton plants. Because the EST libraries available in cotton do not sufficiently include drought induced genes and genes preferentially expressed in roots, we used cDNA-AFLP to detect genes differentially expressed in roots and leaves. Three biological and two technical replicates were used to verify the reliability of expression patterns between well-watered and drought-stressed cotton. Preliminary data suggests that differentially expressed genes are recovered reliably in leaf and root tissues with consistent expression patterns in separate reactions. To date, 129 putative genes have been cloned, sequenced, and functionally annotated. A portion of these genes display tissue specific expression and are being characterized for their response to field drought conditions. Data obtained from this experiment will provide a suite of genes involved in the plant's response to drought.